Chair #340

ARMADILLO CHAIR

—Designed by Aodh O'Donnell

This emerging young designer created this chair from pieces of laminated wood. Lots of em.

Remember the stuffed armadillo in John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany? One of my favorite books of all time, and I am not embarrassed to confess that I cried my heart out at the end. Needless to say, the film didn't do it's justice at all.

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Chapter 2, The Armadillo

Where most of those men are awkward and diffident around John, Dan Needham gives him a mysterious paper bag. He tells John not to open it, but to alert him if it moves. As the adults talk in the living room, John is unable to resist the temptation, and opens the bag. He sees a horrible monster, and screams. Dan laughingly tells John's mother, "I told you he'd open the bag! "The monster, it turns out, is merely a stuffed armadillo, a prop Dan was using in his lecture at Gravesend Academy. He has just been hired as a history professor, focusing on the way drama and performance distinguish different historical epochs. He gives the armadillo to John to keep, and John cherishes it. Owen also loves it, and the two of them create a game in which one of them hides it in the John's grandmother's attic, and the other has to find it.

—Excerpt from John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany